Historical Revisionism in Video Game and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

[Hellraiser]

X-COM ran on Amiga 500. 'Ran' in the loosest sense of the word, more like 'walked' or 'crawled'. Terror from the Deep was little more than asset swap, but they've never bothered with Amiga version.

My bad, I only thought there was an AGA version, turns out there were 3 including a CD-32 one.

 

[Mountain]

You are married to the past. Depth does not excuse poor gameplay. The reason why you put some of these games over newer ones is because you grew up with them.

It's like the opposite of zoomers who only play Madden and Fortnite, their concept of the past doesn't exist just as your concept of the current state of gaming doesn't exist. So you have to call people idiots to defend your view, just as the zoomers do.

No I'm not. I play modern games too and recognize the great ones there. It's just older ones often did it better.

A lot of these games I'd not even played before, so "you just grew up with them" is bollocks. I spoke to plenty of posters on here stating I was going to dig into the past libraries and play a lot for the first time. You're just doing that cope thing of having to make stuff up to find a way to fit your limited view.

Some examples of games which I played for the first time after 2017 which I now class as some of my favorites ever include...

• Hellfire
• DoDonPachi
• Alien Soldier (and I hated this at first. But, unlike you, I took people's advice and pushed through initial skill hurdles, rather than dismiss them in full without any real effort)
• Blackthorne
• Contra Hard Corps
• Langrisser 2
• Exile: Escape From The Pit
• Blades of Vengeance

...and there are plenty more too.

That doesn't mean I don't love modern games like Dark Souls series, Nioh, SMTV Vengence though. Unlike yourself and those games journos, I've a balanced appreciation of games, old & new.

I never said that playing older games today is bad or somehow wrong. I play older games as well. But we have biases towards the games we grow up playing. You seem to have developed tastes around older PC games, which is cool, but that means playing and discovering older games is fun for you. And that is perfectly fine, but you should be able to discern between what you like and what is good.

I fucking love Blast Corps on the N64, but it's not even within the top 1000 of all-time greats. It's not even top 30 on the N64. I know this because I don't let my bias take over my every opinion, like you do.

Saying Star Control 2 is better than Mass Effect is categorical madness. If you enjoy the game better than Mass Effect, cool, good for you, but you should be able to tell that Star Control 2 isn't better than Mass Effect, no matter its historical importance.

What are your top 3 new games from last year?

Like I said before, Star Control has almost endless 2-player replayability. It's up there with Chess, Tetris, Street Fighter 2 etc. The game's lasted me, my family and friends over 30 years worth of play. It's space-chess with action thrown in to boot. Mass Effect can't offer that, nowhere near. It's a play through once every 5-6 years game for one week a year.

By your logic Chess shouldn't be considered one of man's greatest entertainment inventions because it's old and Pokemon has flashier graphics.

Last year, Skald, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth and then a toss up between Black Myth Wukong & Metaphor.

Again, just because you played it for 30 years doesn't mean it's better than Mass Effect. It only means you and your friends love the game. Which is fine.

You can ask a Day Z kid and he will use the same exact argument as you, "I play it so much, so it's the best game ever, it has endless 2-player replayability".

"I play Sonic all day, it's the best game ever, everybody else has shit taste, everyone else is a fucking casual."

It's a nonsensical argument. It doesn't speak to the game. Your love for it is based on other factors than the game quality. The presentation, pacing, onboarding, and gameplay of Star Control are ancient and far behind the modern standard, and your bias looks past that. I do the same with many games as well, everyone does, but that doesn't mean you can't look at the game for what it is. It's like when people champion Sonic over Mario.

Chess doesn't have flashy visuals, it's a board game. And it has nothing in common with Star Control apart from that you can use strategy and that it has a solid ruleset. Tetris and Street Fighter function completely differently as well.

 

[Mountain]

And I never said anything from the golden era is "not good". I said it has aged.

Games are art, not food, you pathetic retarded ape, they do not age.
The only thing that changes with time is your own tastes and willingness to interact with them, which is only a problem when you you have the attention span of a brainrotted zoomer and are used to playing spoon-fed slop.

For example, the UFO Defense interface and perspective are horribly outdated. It's slow and corny to play. I played it through, it was the fucking shit back in the day, but now it's a relic that feels stiff and old.

One of the absolute greatest video games of all time, in 2025, not just in 1994, and this nigger claims “it’s slow and corny to play, [and it] feels stiff and old”. What. the fuck. am I reading.

You are married to the past. Depth does not excuse poor gameplay. The reason why you put some of these games over newer ones is because you grew up with them.
...
This is what I am talking about, nostalgia glasses.
...
All of this is just your bias and childhood affecting your views. It's nonsensical to compare this to newer games.

The usual giga cope answer of literal plebs trying to excuse their shit taste after getting filtered by actually good games.
Where is the nostalgia for 20 year old games I first played in my 20s? What about the 30 year old games I play for the first time in my 30s? NPCs cannot comprehend that some people like quality games and that quality is completely independent from the time you first experience it, if you have a working good taste.
Can you take a gander at these lists and enlighten us on the reasons they are wrong, and most importantly which games do you think should be included instead?

Historically, they were great and important, but if you took 10.000 people with no biases or nostalgia in a room, 97% of people would rather play fucking Dirt 4 than any of this.

97% of people are complete retards with shit taste, which is something you fail to note.

"The Seven Samurai fucking sucks because it's black and white". Childish.

This close and still can’t grasp the irony.

Games are interactive technology in its infancy. Design change, technology change. They couldn't do things in the past that they can do today. Things build on one another. It's more comparable to cars than books and paintings.

The tools simply weren't there when Carmack made Catacombs, Doom was not possible. Quake was not possible. Technology opened up new avenues over time.

Old RPGs have random forced encounters. Early games were sticks that were shuffled across the screen to hit balls. The game design changed and developers learned from each other and made things better over time with new game designs as they got access to more tools.

You seem to think that I am saying that no one can enjoy older games. You make things up. Of course you can enjoy older games, I do too, I discover old games all the time, but that doesn't mean you brush past anything that has become dated. Go and play Daggerfall, it was cool in the day but plays like shit today. That doesn't mean you can grow fond of it.

97% of people have shit taste, but you and the other 3% have great taste? by playing games made by 3 guys in 6 months on a typewriter?

You are like a guy shitting in an outdoor toilet complaining that people with indoor plumbing are idiots.

 

[ropetight]

Again, just because you played it for 30 years doesn't mean it's better than Mass Effect. It only means you and your friends love the game. Which is fine.

Mass Effect was shitty RPG that became shitty action game in the second installment and turned into shitty trilogy.
You playing all of them and loving them doesn't mean it is a good game.
It only means you have shitty taste.

 

[Falksi]

You are married to the past. Depth does not excuse poor gameplay. The reason why you put some of these games over newer ones is because you grew up with them.

It's like the opposite of zoomers who only play Madden and Fortnite, their concept of the past doesn't exist just as your concept of the current state of gaming doesn't exist. So you have to call people idiots to defend your view, just as the zoomers do.

No I'm not. I play modern games too and recognize the great ones there. It's just older ones often did it better.

A lot of these games I'd not even played before, so "you just grew up with them" is bollocks. I spoke to plenty of posters on here stating I was going to dig into the past libraries and play a lot for the first time. You're just doing that cope thing of having to make stuff up to find a way to fit your limited view.

Some examples of games which I played for the first time after 2017 which I now class as some of my favorites ever include...

• Hellfire
• DoDonPachi
• Alien Soldier (and I hated this at first. But, unlike you, I took people's advice and pushed through initial skill hurdles, rather than dismiss them in full without any real effort)
• Blackthorne
• Contra Hard Corps
• Langrisser 2
• Exile: Escape From The Pit
• Blades of Vengeance

...and there are plenty more too.

That doesn't mean I don't love modern games like Dark Souls series, Nioh, SMTV Vengence though. Unlike yourself and those games journos, I've a balanced appreciation of games, old & new.

I never said that playing older games today is bad or somehow wrong. I play older games as well. But we have biases towards the games we grow up playing. You seem to have developed tastes around older PC games, which is cool, but that means playing and discovering older games is fun for you. And that is perfectly fine, but you should be able to discern between what you like and what is good.

I fucking love Blast Corps on the N64, but it's not even within the top 1000 of all-time greats. It's not even top 30 on the N64. I know this because I don't let my bias take over my every opinion, like you do.

Saying Star Control 2 is better than Mass Effect is categorical madness. If you enjoy the game better than Mass Effect, cool, good for you, but you should be able to tell that Star Control 2 isn't better than Mass Effect, no matter its historical importance.

What are your top 3 new games from last year?

Like I said before, Star Control has almost endless 2-player replayability. It's up there with Chess, Tetris, Street Fighter 2 etc. The game's lasted me, my family and friends over 30 years worth of play. It's space-chess with action thrown in to boot. Mass Effect can't offer that, nowhere near. It's a play through once every 5-6 years game for one week a year.

By your logic Chess shouldn't be considered one of man's greatest entertainment inventions because it's old and Pokemon has flashier graphics.

Last year, Skald, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth and then a toss up between Black Myth Wukong & Metaphor.

Again, just because you played it for 30 years doesn't mean it's better than Mass Effect. It only means you and your friends love the game. Which is fine.

You can ask a Day Z kid and he will use the same exact argument as you, "I play it so much, so it's the best game ever, it has endless 2-player replayability".

"I play Sonic all day, it's the best game ever, everybody else has shit taste, everyone else is a fucking casual."

It's a nonsensical argument. It doesn't speak to the game. Your love for it is based on other factors than the game quality. The presentation, pacing, onboarding, and gameplay of Star Control are ancient and far behind the modern standard, and your bias looks past that. I do the same with many games as well, everyone does, but that doesn't mean you can't look at the game for what it is. It's like when people champion Sonic over Mario.

Chess doesn't have flashy visuals, it's a board game. And it has nothing in common with Star Control apart from that you can use strategy and that it has a solid ruleset. Tetris and Street Fighter function completely differently as well.

But it's not.

Star Control's gameplay is pure perfection. As I've already explained several times, it's space chess from a tactical angle. You have to find the right balance between ship types, credits, positioning, ship-combos, world types, and attack and defense strategies to succeed. It's simplified enough sure, but even still Mass Effect's got nothing like that, it's just a shooter with a few token RPG mechanics thrown in.

But then you've an actual shooter element in star Control anyway, which is better than Mass Effects anyway. Mass Effect's is run on a really simple rock-paper-scissors power system...whereas Star Controls rock-paper-scissor combat system is deeper, and contains more variables as each ship stacks up against the others in different ways, giving the tactical part of the game all types of possibilities and making the actual combat as much of a battle of wits as it is skill. It's fucking genius, the balance is supreme and makes for 2-player games that find a supreme synergy of planning, action, predictability and unpredictability.

You're just too casualized to see that, and think Mass Effects simplistic cover-shooter mechanics, which sees you have 60 odd hours of the same action but having to be drip-fed power increases to stay interested, as something special. It's only special if you are.

In fact, have you actually even played Star Control to anything more than a casual degree? I'm really beginning to think you're just standing your ground based on almost 0 experience of Star Control, and just casually looking at the graphics and probably some Youtube play. Your statements don't acknowledge any of the depth it has. Comparing it to Sonic is laughable.

 

[Falksi]

Another example of BS revisionism just posted now again. Unsurprisingly, another Nintendo based false-claim...

"Amongst the most technically advanced RPGs of the era..."

"...the addition of actual voices and voice actors. It is also the first and only Super Famicom game to feature an entirely original, vocalized theme song featured directly in the game"

Well sure, that's advanced for the SNES, but not the era as he claims. Far from it. First example which comes to mind because it fits so perfectly comparatively with it being a JRPG and having it's own intro theme is Lunar The Silver Star, released on SEGA CD 1992. 3-4 years earlier than either SNES game.

Here's the Lunar intro...




Here are the both SNES game intros...






But yeah, 3-4 years late to the party and...in my opinion...not as impressive either...yeah...that's "Amongst the most technically advanced RPGs of the era..." lol, as if

In fact, apparently he's even wrong about it being the "the first and only Super Famicom game to feature an entirely original, vocalized theme song featured directly in the game"...


Down the World: Mervil's Ambition (Japan, SNES) (1994)

 

[Gerrard]

>Sega CD vs a 6MB cartridge
That's supposed to be impressive you fucking autist?

 

[PrK]

Games are interactive technology in its infancy. Design change, technology change. They couldn't do things in the past that they can do today. Things build on one another. It's more comparable to cars than books and paintings.

Design can change, of course, but change does not necessarily mean improvement, you get that right? Same thing with technology, do you think that just because a modern game can utilise more megabytes of RAM it is better than a game that ran on floppy disks?
And no, games are infinitely more comparable to an artform like film or music than a product.

The tools simply weren't there when Carmack made Catacombs, Doom was not possible. Quake was not possible. Technology opened up new avenues over time.

Again, so close and still not getting it. Do you think a modern UE5 slop is better than Doom or Quake just because it is more technologically advanced?

Old RPGs have random forced encounters. Early games were sticks that were shuffled across the screen to hit balls. The game design changed and developers learned from each other and made things better over time with new game designs as they got access to more tools.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Do you believe that progress was linear? That it continues to this day? Don’t you get that constraints birthed innovation, and with rapid innovation both in hardware and in software we got most of the masterpieces we have today, but that is by and large a thing of the past? When people say that old games were better it means exactly that, we got for example Thief or Deus Ex, but instead of "new game designs" being brought forth as developers "got access to more tools" we got slop instead. For a long time now, the game industry doesn't care and/or is incapable of making good games, easy profit - and in more recent years, pushing agendas - is the main driving force.

You seem to think that I am saying that no one can enjoy older games. You make things up. Of course you can enjoy older games, I do too, I discover old games all the time, but that doesn't mean you brush past anything that has become dated.

In reality there is a very small amount of things that can objectively be called inferior due to best practices/intuitiveness not yet been figured out. Again, which newer games do you think are more worthy of being included in a best of list like the Codex ones I linked previously instead of all these old games that this forum truly believes are better?

97% of people have shit taste, but you and the other 3% have great taste? by playing games made by 3 guys in 6 months on a typewriter?

1. Yes, the RPGCodex regulars do have an immeasurably better taste than the masses, that’s one of the main outcomes of autists sperging about their niche hobby.
2. Is "games made by 3 guys in 6 months on a typewriter" supposed to be a comment denigrating games by Sir-Tech, Origin, Interplay, Black Isle, SSI, Sierra, Westwood, NWC, LucasArts, MicroProse, Troika, Looking Glass? If so, you are posting in the wrong forum, faggot.

 

[Falksi]

>Sega CD vs a 6MB cartridge
That's supposed to be impressive you fucking autist?

In 1992 it was impressive as hell. In 1995 & 1996 respectively, not so much. But that's the picture that fag is trying to paint.

There'll be other examples too, I just used Lunar because, as I said, it was the first which came to mind and it fits the JRPG genre.

 

[Ravielsk]

Zelda is shit.
There, I said it.
Don't really care about Mario.
I just played a few of them and that was it, not really impressed.

I would not call it outright "shit". Zelda games are quality entertainment but in the broader context they are "perfectly stale".
There is nothing wrong with any of the mainline games but there is also nothing exactly that special about them. They are their own little perfectly serviceable bubble and within that bubble they rock.

Outside of that bubble its a series that lives more on the back of not really having to compete with anything rather than anything else. What is a mortal sin for others is somehow always a bold choice for zelda. Dark Souls games after 1 get (rightfully) shat on for being self referential and tying everything to the same 5 characters but for Zelda games its somehow OK to have literary the exact same story in every single game.
Or how about weapon durability, a otherwise universally disliked nonsense in other games, somehow turns into a clever choice to force weapon switching in BotW.

There is plenty to praise about Zelda games but the bulk of what is out there is disingenuous and based on a standard that only exists for Zelda games and nothing else.

 

[Nutmeg]

The Japanese console "puzzle" tactics games, while much much simpler when viewed as simulations, and far less entertaining as toy boxes, were far more complex as games.

Ahh, so this is your definition of a "complex gaem", with it having a puzzle encounter philosophy.

Well, this is not what complex means

No actually my measure is decisions per unit of game time multiplied by a complexity factor for those decisions.

 

[Gerrard]

>Sega CD vs a 6MB cartridge
That's supposed to be impressive you fucking autist?

In 1992 it was impressive as hell. In 1995 & 1996 respectively, not so much. But that's the picture that fag is trying to paint.

There'll be other examples too, I just used Lunar because, as I said, it was the first which came to mind and it fits the JRPG genre.

There's nothing impressive about using CD audio, contrary to pushing hardware beyond what was considered possible.

 

[Inec0rn]

Just echoing star control 2 much better game with better replayability than Mass Effect, hoping the two guys upcoming sequel game is decent too. People can't get over graphics, even when they say it's not important :/

The guy mentions Blast Corps - that's actually a very cool innovative game of the time, it more deserving of that list than a lot of other things for at least being a unique idea, challenging / interesting and generally well put together game.

 

[Sòren]

just generally about the topic of revisionism in the digital age: i played The Moment of Silence a couple of months ago, Telltale adventure game about conspiracy theories, public surveillance and control....i do not believe that they handled this topic pretty well, it's not a game i would recommend.
however, there was this one character who owned a shop for second-hand books and items (in german we call them "antiquarians"; i don't know why the english language doesn't even have an appropriate term for that, because second-hand dealer doesn't fit the reality for those of certain distinction), and the protagonist can ask him a couple of questions why he keeps all this junk around, books, newspapers, when we are living in a time when everything can be easily accessed and saved on your electric devices. he answers that he keeps them around exactly because they cannot be easily lost or manipulated. things that are printed are just as they are, "forever" (as long as the medium that holds this information).

i keep a library of ancient books myself, but i never understood the purpose of that so clearly before this conversation.

in this context, one has to wonder why the first thing corporations like amazon did was to buy up all the online second-hand book shops.

 

[Viata]

amiga was a beast of a workstation which happened to be good at videogames too.

Amiga was the world's first true multimedia personal computer, as said by Jimmy Maher in The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga. I recommend this book to anyone that is interested in the Amiga.

 

[Kev Inkline]

 

[Viata]

What are your top 3 new games from last year?

A Tower Full of Cats

Stray Cats in Cozy Town

and
A Park Full of Cats


I have not played A Shelter Full of Cats so I can't comment on how it stand compared to the other three:


PS: my taste may be biased, though.

 

[Lemming42]

Haven't read the thread in full but:

Saying Star Control 2 is better than Mass Effect is categorical madness. If you enjoy the game better than Mass Effect, cool, good for you, but you should be able to tell that Star Control 2 isn't better than Mass Effect, no matter its historical importance.

I don't think it's "categorical madness".

The comparison between the two games is a bit out of nowhere because, beyond both being trope-filled space opera stories, they don't have an enormous deal in common, but if we were to compare them, there's a very real argument to be made that Star Control 2 is better as a game. Furthermore, there's an equally strong argument to be made that the Mass Effect trilogy is kind of shit, both subjectively (if you don't enjoy BioWare's hackneyed writing or the simplistic-yet-somehow-still-clunky gameplay) and more objectively in that it fails to meet its own criteria for success.

The worst part is that I'd completely agree with your wider points about people treating old vs new games by unfairly different standards and romanticising games from their childhoods if you hadn't picked something as shitty as Mass Effect to focus on!

 

[Viata]

"The Seven Samurai fucking sucks because it's black and white". Childish.

This close and still can’t grasp the irony.

True, the real reason the Seven Samurai sucks is because of a lack of gunfights

Just watch the american version:

 

[Inec0rn]

Haven't read the thread in full but:

Saying Star Control 2 is better than Mass Effect is categorical madness. If you enjoy the game better than Mass Effect, cool, good for you, but you should be able to tell that Star Control 2 isn't better than Mass Effect, no matter its historical importance.

I don't think it's "categorical madness".

The comparison between the two games is a bit out of nowhere because, beyond both being trope-filled space opera stories, they don't have an enormous deal in common, but if we were to compare them, there's a very real argument to be made that Star Control 2 is better as a game. Furthermore, there's an equally strong argument to be made that the Mass Effect trilogy is kind of shit, both subjectively (if you don't enjoy BioWare's hackneyed writing or the simplistic-yet-somehow-still-clunky gameplay) and more objectively in that it fails to meet its own criteria for success.

The worst part is that I'd completely agree with your wider points about people treating old vs new games by unfairly different standards and romanticising games from their childhoods if you hadn't picked something as shitty as Mass Effect to focus on!

Yeah but coming from a guy that had to install/play Avowed to know of it was a good game or slop doesn't add a lot of weight to your posts in this thread.

 

[Silverfish]

But what's gonna get a spot in IGNs "greatest games ever!" in 5-10 years time?

I don't know either of the people who still read IGN, so I couldn't say.

But where are all the Nioh clones mechanically? Nowhere. Yet Dark Souls clones are ten a penny.

Yeah. Nioh, despite being mechanically superior, is still itself a derivative product. It's like asking "Where are the Surge-likes?"

Shit taste. Mass Effect is a play never game.

Play the trilogy at least once as a renegade vanguard, laugh your ass off, then put it away and forget about it.

 

[Inec0rn]

I kinda presume people that follow utub game reviewers or those game journalism sites are just addicted to gaming and play any ol' slop that gets released with the slightest amount of hype (hypes that usually unfounded and paid for). If you have been gaming a long time, it's pretty easy to determine if something is worth your time or not, I haven't cared about scores or lists since demo disks and magazines were a thing.

I guess in 2025 knowing if something is a buggy mess is kinda relevant (while this was still a thing a long time ago, it was much less common). Modern games are extremely derivative and not in a good way to me, i also don't understand why there are so many 100m+ open-world whack a mole mini game chasing games are so popular but here we are.. they release literally the same game over and over again with different character models in it, e.g an ubisoft game, a squaresoft game, a lot of sony games, Zelda series now (because they dropped the actual Zelda formula haha) = they are the exact same games with a different player character models.